This.

Lots of decent neighborhoods around. The shitty parts are a relatively small portion. Southwood would be my first choice for area to live in, especially if kids are going to be a factor later on. Killearn in the North end is a really nice area too but unless you work nearby, the commute sucks. There's one main road and thousands of people driving on it at the same time.

Summers in Tally are hot and humid like the rest of Florida. No getting around that. But for 5 to 6 months out of the year, it's like one long, extended Northern autumn. Not uncommon to wake up to grass coated in frost in the winter but you'll probably never see snow. In my 10 years there, I saw flurries one time. Temps in winter frequently get below freezing.

Gainesville. Living downtown, you'll never need to drive.

I forgot about the bus system. According to my daughter, G'ville bus stops are everywhere and they are efficient and cheap. They go everywhere. Gainesville is close to the springs, which are vasty more enjoyable than beaches if you like the water. The water is cold year round and pure. It is as liberal as it gets, but the surrounding areas are very conservative.

Also, Jax is pretty decent on the Southside and Mandarin areas.

Grew up near there, went to school there (FSU), lived there until about 2010 and still have a house there.

Good stuff:
- Good stuff withing driving.  Panama City, St. George Island, Wakulla Springs, Atlanta, Pensacola, St. Augustine, Orlando.
- Canopy roads are gorgeous.
- People are fairly nice.
- Some decent small restaurants and such.  Lucy and Leo's cupcakes (wife and kids love it), Decent Pizza, Lucy Ho's, Momo's Pizza, Masa.  I am sure I missed some.
- Fresh seafood is easily available and the restaurants definitely are better for seafood.
- Decent hunting in the local area
- Great fishing both offshore and fresh water
- FSU football.  Go Noles!
- FSU in general is a nice campus if you or she decides to take classes.
- Good gun laws.
- Decent public and private ranges
- Pretty good bar scene.  Do the Tennessee Waltz (hit all the bars on Tennessee street)  at least one time if you drink and party a bit.


Bad stuff:
- It's friggin' hot and humid. Not much of a Fall season.  Winter gets too damn cold in comparison to summers.
- Not enough outstanding restaurants
- Traffic is an absolute bitch.  The interstate bypasses Tallahassee to the north, so it doesn't help much at all.  No highspeed 2+ lane roads except a few they have built in the central easterly area recently
- Did I mention it's hot?  Humid?
- Crime is fairly bad in certain areas. Mostly central, near FSU and FAMU in the south eastern quarter.  Although it does move a bit north central as you cross over Tennessee street.  (Tennessee is the north south divider of town while Monroe is the east west.
- Decent paying jobs are hard to come by.  Most of the available jobs are in the bar and food area and working for the State in temporary-permanent positions.  That means you don't get raises and you can be let go at anytime.
- Not a lot of big employers there. Hospitals, some light industry, Publix supermarkets.  The problem I found there was finding (not even getting one, just finding one to apply for) a GOOD job.  
- The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.  Just, no.  It's one good feature is you can use it to wrap your fish up that you caught that day.
- It is extremely liberal leaning politically.  It's difficult to for Republicans to win in Leon County.  Most of the rest of the Panhandle is conservative.

It's been a while, but when I lived there the traffic commuting from south of the city was insane at some points. 1 or 2 lanes (each side) with everyone trying to get to work during rush hour or trying to get home.  North is not as bad.

The better areas to live are northeast, northwest and east central.  East and southeast  is mostly recent developments.  North east is older but nice (country club type stuff) and northwest is near several lakes and some new houses and a good bit of "older" ones built in the last 10-20 years.  Northern areas benefit from Capital Circle, the bypass type road that circles the city.  There also are older and newer apartments in the central area. Some are good on crime, some aren't.  Do your research for there.  Try very hard to not go south of Tennessee street for your living area unless you go further south outside the city.  Do not let anyone talk you into living on Hwy 20 west of town.  It's trashy redneck-ville.  Not good rednecks; the meth and natural light beer/cheap pint bottle of whiskey crowd.  If you need a house on the north side in a quiet neighborhood, let me know

If you have any questions shoot me a PM.

HaM

Yeah this.  Gainesville is the East til you smell it, South til you step in it.  People there are obnoxious.

We certainly corrected you last year on national television.  Why did the Gator cross the road?  He couldn't cross the goal line.  Your cheerleaders would have done better.

It's really easy to make friends there. Lots of freaks, geeks and warm fuzzy eco people. If I was moving away from the shelter of my family for the first time, as an adult with physical and social challenges and a vegetarian, Prius driving wife, that's exactly where I'd want to be.

Saw that you don't drive.  The best area I think would be in some of the nicer downtown areas.  Possible the stuff out to the east, but I don't know how public transportation is from out there towards other areas.  As some have posted, in Florida it's best to drive.  Most of the cities don't grow upward, they sprawl.  When I grew up, St. Pete and the beaches were their own town.  Now it's solid city going north to Crystal River and beyond.  One solid strip mall most of the way.  It's heading that way towards Orlando as well.

I am going down to visit family next week.  If I can get out to the eastern side I will take a look at the public transportation stuff.

If you are not beach people find a place in the south with a moderate winter (compared to IL)
Dahlonega,GA for example...get some nice land in the Smoky Mnts or in the Ozarks.
You can skip the weeks of -0° weather and go for someplace where 30-40° winters of relatively short duration are more the norm....
Summers warm but not as hot as the coasts or as humid

I grew up near where I10 and hwy90/Mahan/TN Street intersect.  There is no public transportation that I am aware of and nothing is walking distance from anything else.

That is beautiful country. I don't know about moving there, but I'don't defiantly like to visit again.

You should inquire on the Florida HTF.

You're correct about the public transit aspect. However, the underlined portion is completely incorrect.



 

This is pretty much spot on..
I lived in Tally for 10 years, I had a great time, loved the city. AWESOME place to be young and care free.
I Bad shit happens everywhere. You will learn quickly where to avoid.
Traffic is HORRIBLE for such a small town.
If I found myself in a position to move back I wouldnt hesitate.

Yep. There's a reason gainesville is known as "hogtown."



 

That's exactly why I hate that town. Hippies, vegans, eco-liberals, and trailer trash make up gainesville.



 

Hurricane Alley. The panhandle catches a lot of storms.

You can't deny the art and academia of Gainesville. Lots of potters, painters and experts on obscure stuff. My bumper fell off my car and my blacksmith (who'd just made me a suit of armor) stuck it back on. The firefighter next door might be an expert on herpetology, and he might love to go shooting with you. That's the Gainesville I know. It's a weird place, but people are outgoing and not boring.

A woman in armor.  Thats beyond cool.



 

Plus the sinkholes are bigger in Gainesville, too.

$50K a year there is hard to get. Been living there for the last three years.

 



It is a place of "Not what you know but who you know". They are the big fish in a small pond attitude. Career wise you have the State, the County, and the City. Private industry is very hard to survive in the area.






The majority of government jobs pay in the $30k range. If you're making $50k you're doing very well.






As for the area itself. It is a mixture of quite and crazy. You have the Lake Jackson area (NW area) which is quite living, same with Killearn (NE). Goldn Eagle is rich folks.






Anything around FSU is shitty and FAMU is GHETTO. Student housing is always in demand.... but stay away from the student housing if you value quite. Lots of crime in certain areas like French Town. Shootings are common. But it is all confined in the ghetto areas which are near the schools. Mostly it is drug/gang related and involves the drug trade for the students.






Stay away from the south end of town for housing. It is very trailer trash.






Property Taxes are cheap. I paid $800 last year. My home was $112,000. 3/2 on a 1/4 acre corner lot. Quite neighborhood.



 


The area is very liberal. Democrats control every local office of government. But then again it is a very gun friendly area. Plenty of hunting and a great range.... Talon Range in Midway (five minutes away) is an awesome place.




The place itself goes dead during Summer Vacation and Christmas Break. College students are the life blood. 40,000 kids in town. Get ready for bad drivers. I rode motorcycles all my life in Miami and in my first six months of being in Tallahassee I got T-Boned by a damn college kid.







Miami_JBT

 

You're 60 miles away from the Beach in Tallahassee.

 

thats what cave and cavern divers live for

This is the extent of a really cold winter day.




No snow and none of the shit that comes with that. The 20s happen but isn't everyday.

They also die for those caves and caverns, too.  During the 7 years I was stationed down in Valdosta, GA there were multiple diver deaths in the caves in FL every year.  We lost a couple of guys from the base one weekend doing a cavern dive and someone from my apartment complex died in in a cave at Wakulla Springs.

I lived there for 4 + years, went to FSU.

Nice town, rural, southern if you like that sort of thing.

Supply and demand applies in the job market and the supply is very strong in Tallahassee as there is a built in oversupply of workers. College students abound to work the lower paid jobs. There are a lot of people that either drop out or stay in Tallahassee after graduation for various reasons so there is an abundant supply of workers with Bachelors and advanced degrees with little to now experience, looking for jobs.

You can of course find jobs there but it is an 'Employers' market. It will be much more difficult to find a job there and it will pay less than the same job in most other US markets.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the original Seminole pig farmers that lived there...

History + FSU ; There's a reason FSU cant even break the Top 200 in University Rankings

Yeah I did.

I wish I could have blamed it on drinking, but I didnt start till later that night.

A few have mentioned some of the other options so here's my 2 cents.

Jacksonville has a lot of large call centers for financial services, with the right amount of overtime I think $50k+ would be very doable. Cost of living is very reasonable as well. Throwing this out there since you have experience in customer service.

Fidelity, Chase, Bank of America, etc. are a few that come to mind. The better paying jobs would entail getting licenses (series 7 and 63/66) but most would be paid during training. Also a big blue cross blue shield office there, not sure on the pay scale there though.

I couldn't handle the phone personally, but one of the above was my first employer out of college and I enjoyed Jacksonville for the time I was there. Having the background you have in customer service would give you a leg up imho in the hiring process - the people I worked with came from various backgrounds and there were a few with call center backgrounds that moved up quickly. There were also people from various states that ended up in my training class so if you can afford to relocate yourself they won't hold it against you during the application process. Call centers always have high turnover but that also means they're always hiring.

Best of luck.

That's the point I was making. The "south til you step in it" part is referring to pig shit.



 

This is very true regarding employment. State an Federal government seems to be largest employers. Most graduates move away for work (myself included, but my new line of work brought me back.)



 

I don't have a ton of info to add that hasn't already been posted.  I have lived here for going on 16 years, and I like it.  If I could choose to live anywhere, it wouldn't be here, but I have a great job, and the area is conducive to some of the things I like to do.

I have been a cop here for about 14 years, and what others have said is true--our violent crime rate is pretty high.  But it is generally thug-on-thug crime.  Just stay out of the bad areas.  

The north east part of town is probably where you want to live, and have your kids go to school.  

I am one of the owners of the largest gun ranges in the area, so you have a place to shoot.  We run USPSA, Steel Challenge and 3-gun matches monthly.

So where would the idea place to live in FL be if someone is a beach person?

I moved here 5 years ago and plan to stay. Talon range is great for plinking and USPSA. Great schools. Stay on the north east side of town and you will be fine. I only go west for work, but get my ass back when I'm off the clock. lots of nature to see. The summers are hot but they do have this thing called air conditioner. It works great.

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Tallahassee is 30mins from the nearest "beach" at Shell Point. It doesn't look like the Bahamas as it's very close to a couple of rivers that empty into the Gulf.  But you can be over to St. George Island in about 1.5 hrs and on a pretty day, it is beautiful there. Aqua green shallow water, white sand. The beaches here West to Pensacola are very pretty. The panhandle area has a lot of Southern influence, either native Floridians or transplants from MS, AL, GA. There are a few medium sized cities along this area. Jobs can be had in this area if you have a skill. Living on the water is expensive but living near the water is affordable.

This area has fewer people than Southwest or the East coast of Florida. The cost of living near the water in these areas is going to be higher than the Panhandle.

 
Honestly.  I don't think there really is one place thats better than the rest.   Of course I'm a little bias to Pensacola.  


I can go from here (Pensacola Beach).  Front to back land mass in the picture is Pensacola Beach then Gulf Breeze then Pensacola




To here on a canoe (Blackwater River)  in 30min.





 

I’m just quoting this for FB season.  SOON..

...and that's the reel truth.  :)